17Aug 06

Girls ‘turning out to be’ underage was doubtless a very real concern for your gigging rock star of the 60s and 70s, though I suspect a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy would be closer to the truth than Gary Puckett’s horrified self-denial. Puckett lays out the classic Lolita defense – grown man no match for deceitful nymphet with her skirts and make-up and “come-on look”. There’s something breathily weak, tearful almost, about Puckett’s vocals on the verse which makes the whole thing sleazier: his struggling for control is all too convincing. The sleaze has a strong setting: Puckett’s songwriters were highly regarded and the chorus especially is the sort of thing I might find myself bellowing along to in the pub, leaving me with a feeling of nervous shame the next day. A good match of content and effect, then.

@93: The DJ was presumably thinking of that uber-sleazy line about how the narrator “always get[s] it up for the touch of the younger kind”. A harsh interpretation perhaps, but I can see where he was coming from…

His popularity in Britain did wane following the inexorable rise of his near-namesake, zany Brummie funnyman Don Maclean, pronounced as in opposite of dirty, viz. “Maclean!” “Yes I had a bath this morning.” What chance did Playing Favourites stand against his classic renditions of “Golden Years,” “A Glass Of Champagne” etc.?

I’m going to resist the severe temptation of plunging in to another discussion with punctum regarding Crackerjack Don and the way he and dear old Peter Glaze used to present bizarre versions of chart hits of the day. Peter’s rendition of Boz Scaggs’ “Lido Shuffle” was and is legendary.

The less pleasant side of Don arose when he presented the God slot show for Radio 2 (now in the hands of the perfectly decent Aled Jones) and seemed to suggest that George Harrison’s passing would provide George the opportunity of atoning for his part in “Life of Brian”.

This “singing a pop song of the day” lark was replicated on a truly dire pop show from the end of the seventies on ITV called “Get It Together”. One of the presenters was Roy North, one time oppo of Basil Brush. The spot in question opened the show unlike in “Crackerjack” when it arrived in a costume sketch piece towards the end.

Roy once stuck a peg at the end of his hooter and treated us to a rendidtion of “Ma Na Ma Na”. The look he received from fellow presenter Linda Fletcher, a sturdy good time-looking gal, echoed the thoughts of us all in suggesting that North should have been sectioned.

@85: Interesting comment about “Dirty, Dirty Feeling” and how such dodgy lyrics didn’t appear to bother the censors of the day, although they were happy to ban popular songs that they saw as in any way blasphemous or sexually immoral. Another example of this phenomenon is ‘You Been Torturing Me’, a minor US hit in 1961 both for the Four Young Men and for Gary “Alley Oop” Paxton. As far as I know, neither version was banned or censored in any state, yet the lyrics are possibly the most unpleasant I’ve ever heard in a mainstream pop song. Herewith in full:

“I’m gonna stomp you on the top of your foot
And hang you from a big long fishing hook
And drop you down to the bottom of the sea, hey-hey
Let the sharks eat you all up
If them mean old whales don’t interrupt
Cos baby you know how you been torturing little ol’ me
Hey-hey

“I’m the judge, the jury too
Judgement has been brought upon you
You been convicted for the crime you’ve done
You made me feel like a little ol’ crumb

“You know it’s wrong to torture me
You love my friends the same way you love me
And like Tom, I don’t wanna hang from a big oak tree over you
When I say hop, I mean make like a frog
And when I say bark, you better sound like a dog
Cos I’m gonna torture you
The same way you been torturing little ol’ me, hey-hey”

The song is too stupid to be in any way ironic, although the singer’s goofy drawl (in either version) presumably signifies that it’s meant to be humorous, playful even. It doesn’t sound that way.

Examples such as the above, the Elvis lyric cited by Mutley and, of course, the (in)famous line “I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man” as featured in numbers by the King and later the Fabs – all of which were untroubled by bans of any kind, AFAIK – seem to show how, notwithstanding their general overweening piety and censoriousness, the moral authorities of the day weren’t too bothered about suggestions of rape/murderous revenge for female infidelity appearing in music for kiddies and juveniles. I’m not remotely suggesting that such songs should have been banned (indeed, the use of the “see you dead” line in ‘Baby Let’s Play House’ gives the song a deliciously dark undertone), merely that they reflect the misogynistic “angels or whores” attitude to women that was so common in those days and so rarely challenged at the time.

#111 but did they? It sits on their debut album without outrage (the album wasn’t banned).

I’m more of the opinion that it was not a hit because the track is slow, morose, and has no good-time vibe like “He’s a rebel” and “da doo ron ron” (don’t know “Uptown” off-hand) so probably didn’t get airplay for all sorts of reasons.

A more up-to-date example would be Florence and the Machine’s, “Kiss Like A Fist” which was inexplicably used as a continmuity ad on BBC TV for a time. Does it get away with it because it’s a happy wee tune…. or because it’s being sung by a female?

You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate
Over my head
Then I set fire to our bed

You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate
Over my head
Then I set fire to our bed

My black eye casts no shadow
Your red eye sees no pain
Your slaps don’t stick
Your kicks don’t hit
So we remain the same
Blood sticks and sweat drips
Break the lock if it don’t fit
A kick in the teeth is good for some
A kiss with a fist is better than none
A-woah, a kiss with a fist is better than none

Broke your jaw once before
Spilled your blood upon the floor
You broke my leg in return
Sit back and watch the bed burn
Well love sticks, sweat drips
Break the lock if it don’t fit
A kick in the teeth is good for some
A kiss with a fist is better than none
A-woah, a kiss with a fist is better than none

You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate over my head
Then I set fire to our bed

You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate over my head
Then I set fire to our bed

Mark, I think the fact the lyric on He Hit Me is so bare – with the stark, blunt arrangement suggesting brute violence – just meant that everyone heard the lyrics, and felt queasy. I didn’t say it was banned.

I’m sure there are quotes from Lester Sill on how no radio station would touch it. It didn’t even merit a UK release. When copies turn up on ebay they are almost always promos – no one bought it.

For the record, I think it’s amazing, so shocking it feels like it stops time.

Songs like Dirty Dirty Feeling or Run For Your Life are upbeat and danceable, so the impact of the lyric is considerably lessened. How often to you hear people say “I don’t really listen to lyrics that much”?

Wiki has a source (from allmusic.com – so take that for what it is worth) claiming that He Hit Me is grounded in truth – that Goffin and King found out that Little Eva’s boyfriend was abusing her and asked why she stayed with him and got the gist of the song as a response. I suspect them writing this and giving Please Hurt Me to Little Eva might well have been them trying to get her to wake up (although this might be charitable – I can’t for the life of me imagine why else you would give her songs to sing about her own domestic violence situation, so I assume it is intervention by song).

Re the discussion above (around late March 2011)about censorship and banning records, this is an appropriate spot to mention the recent death of Carl Gardner, lead singer of the Coasters, who produced a string of rock’n’roll Leiber and Stoller classics in the mid to late 50s, including Charlie Brown, which was banned by the BBC because of the use of the word “spitball”. I believe the BBC later rescinded its ban following popular protest.

I can remember very clearly hearing this at the time as it is a bit of an ear worm and GP sings the hell out of it but there’s no denying its problematic lyrics. You can pick up similar sentiments in other songs as detailed above. I’ve always found ‘Your life, little girl, is an empty page/That men will want to write on’ and the whole of ‘You are Sixteen, going on Seventeen’ from ‘The Sound of Music’ pretty creepy.

Puckett (minus the Union Gap) opened for the Monkees when they toured in the ’80s. All I remember of his set is that a group of middle-aged women in the front row were very much into him, he played barefoot, and “Young Girl” was even creepier sung by a guy likely in his 40s by then.

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